The Milwaukee Bucks may have landed the cleanest value pick in the draft, and the evidence keeps piling up for Brayden Burries.
Milwaukee grabbed the Arizona guard with the 10th overall pick in this past draft, and the reaction around the league already suggested the Bucks got a bargain. A new ESPN poll only sharpened that case.
Burries ran away with the "Who will prove to be the biggest draft steal?" vote, collecting six votes and finishing well ahead of the field.
Golden State’s Yaxel Lendeborg finished second with three votes. Sacramento’s Darius Acuff Jr. got two, while Chicago’s Caleb Wilson and Atlanta’s Kingston Flemings each picked up one. Even Lendeborg’s coach, Steve Kerr, reportedly groaned when Milwaukee took Burries, per Anthony Slater.
That kind of response lines up with how Burries was viewed before draft night. He was widely projected to go somewhere in the middle of the lottery range, with some mock drafts sending him as high as five and others as low as nine. Once Dallas stunned everyone by taking Morez Johnson Jr. at No. 9 - a move likely tied to Johnson’s connection with new coach Dusty May from Michigan - Milwaukee’s pick became the obvious one.
Burries then backed up the buzz at Summer League.
Across four games, he averaged 23.5 points, 4.5 rebounds, 4.3 rebounds, and two steals while shooting 50 percent from the field. That kind of production turned heads fast, even if the sample size was small. Few rookies in this class matched those numbers.
Now the question shifts from draft-night value to role. Burries looks set to have a real chance to crack Milwaukee’s rotation right away next season, even with a crowded backcourt. Under Taylor Jenkins, he should get room to show what he can do from day one.
For a franchise that has taken plenty of swings and misses in the draft over the years, Burries is starting to look like the kind of pick that changes the conversation. He fell right into Milwaukee’s lap at No. 10, and so far he’s doing exactly what the Bucks hoped: making the teams that passed on him look worse by the day.
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